The Industry that is John Lescroat

I believe I have read some Lescroart mysteries before and picking up his latest, The Keeper, last weekend at the library was my attempt to kick start my lagging reading/blogging life by going back to my favorite genre.

I grabbed the book Wednesday morning and cracked it open as I lay on a gurney in the ER going through tests to see if I was having a heart attack.  I have learned through dozens of emergency room adventures with my mother, son and husband, that reading material is essential to make the hours of waiting tolerable.  I was through the first 100 pages before I saw a doctor.

The tests were anticlimactic and so, in a sense, is The Keeper.  Not to keep you in suspense like a good murder mystery, the test results showed a flare up of arrhythmia that last occurred seven years ago.  More doctor visits to follow.

As was the book somewhat less than dramatic at its conclusion.  The character of the retired police investigator taking a job for the defense attorney was excellent.  Here was a person who aimed only for results, utilized his decades of job experience, and relished going around bureaucratic obstacles.  Yup, I identified with him,  Lescroart lards his story with as many women as men; while the jail is all male, the police investigators include a woman with some what if insights that add to the case development.  The victim, the marriage counselor, the victim's extended family and in-laws all include well depicted female characters.

So why am I not raving about the book and recommending it to the max?  The thread that eventually becomes the identity of the killer is as apparent as a red thread in a blue piece of fabric.  Too much back story is added to the criminal's earlier life to justify motivation that is not otherwise evident in the main story of a teetering marriage, partially attributable to one spouse's hostile workplace.

But more than that forced ending, I hated the author's acknowledgements.  He comes off like a book-grinding industry.  I have this innate bias against people who hire others to run their webpages and social media.  Worse yet, is a writer who sort of bids out the chance to have a real person's name be used for a literary character.  In hindsight, it looks to me like a cast of thousands of minor walk-ons show up in the story only to meet this obligation to use a "winner's" name.

So this is two "industry" books in a row:  the one that turned out to be penned by another Rowlings alias went back unread.  Will I read another Lescroart?  Maybe, at least look for one of his earlier ones before he became corporate.